Haiti: Hundreds Of Prison Inmates Flee After Armed Gangs Storm Facility, Govt Declares Emergency

The Haitian government has declared a state of emergency and curfew after a series of attacks in the capital city of Port-au-Prince.

Haiti grapples with surge in violence/Representational Image

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Hundreds of inmates at the Haiti main prison fled on Saturday night after armed gangs stormed the facility in an ensuing explosion of deadly violence that engulfed much of the capital. The exact number of inmates who had escaped was unclear but Arnel Remy, a human rights attorney whose nonprofit works inside the prison, said on X that fewer than 100 of the nearly 4,000 inmates remained behind bars. 

“I’m the only one left in my cell,” an unidentified inmate told Reuters. 

Citing a local journalist, the BBC reported that the vast majority of about 4,000 men held there had escaped.

The jailbreak comes after a series of coordinated attacks that began Thursday in the capital city of Port-au-Prince while embattled Prime Minister Ariel Henry is abroad trying to salvage support for an UN-backed security forces to stabilise the country, reported The Guardian. 

On Monday, the Haiti government declared a state of emergency and curfew, reported the news agency AFP. 

The responsibility for the surge of attacks in the Caribbean country was claimed by Jimmy Chérizier, a former elite police officer known as Barbecue who now runs a gang federation. 

Chérizier said that the goal was to capture Haiti's police chief and government ministers and also to prevent Henry's return to the country, The Guardian report added. 

On Sunday, three bodies wounded by gunshots lay at the entrance to Haiti's National Penitentiary with gates wide open and no guards in sight, as per an Associated Press report. 

In another neighbourhood, the corpses of two men in a pool of blood with their hands tied behind their backs laid face down as residents walked past roadblocks set up with burning tires. 

Amid the upheaval, Haiti's government urged calm as it sought to find the killers, kidnappers, and perpetrators of other violent crimes that it said had escaped during the outbreak of violence. 

In a post on social media platform X, the communications ministry said, “The National Police is taking all measures to find the escaped prisoners and arrest those responsible for these criminal acts as well as all their accomplices so that public order can be restored.”